Los Angeles Needs A Football Team … L.A. Raiders Part II, Anyone?
Andrew Melkonian | Nov 29, 2009 | Comments 5
If you haven’t heard by now, there have been efforts made to construct a new stadium in Los Angeles. Edward P. Roski, a part-owner of the Los Angeles Lakers and the Los Angeles Kings, has announced plans for the stadium on the northern side of the interchange of state routes 57 and 60 with the purpose of attracting an NFL team back to the Los Angeles region.
The working title of the proposed 75,000 seat stadium that will be located in the City of Industry, CA, is the Los Angeles Stadium. The cost of the stadium is rumored to be around $800 million dollars.
Thus far, the National Football League has not announced that it will create an expansion franchise for the city of Los Angeles. Especially because the league is at a large even number of teams, 32, it seems that the only real alternative to ever getting a pro football in L.A. is to lure a team from another city. In April 2008, Roski identified the San Diego Chargers, Buffalo Bills, Jacksonville Jaguars, Oakland Raiders, San Francisco 49ers, New Orleans Saints and Minnesota Vikings as possible candidates to move to the new stadium. Los Angeles has had two NFL franchises call it home in the past. The Los Angeles Rams resided in L.A. from 1946-1994 and the Raiders played in L.A. from 1982-1994, winning Super Bowl XVIII in 1984.
Los Angeles needs a pro football team like O.J. Simpson needs jail. The only conceivable reason for Los Angeles not to have a football team is because it will surely make traffic a lot worse. You think that getting out of Dodger Stadium is hard. Imagine that plus 25,000 more people and around two extremely busy freeways. Hell on earth. However, the positives will definitely outweigh the negatives. This is a guarantee.
Right away, jobs will be created for construction, and once the stadium is constructed there will be jobs available in concessions, security, the front office, and maintenance. The jobs available would be a godsend during this horrible economy. The stadium wouldn’t have to only have football games played there either. You could have Super Bowls, soccer matches, demonstrations, festivals; you could even have a Wrestlemania at the stadium.
Los Angeles is one of the greatest sports cities in not only the history of this country, but the entire sporting world. The Olympics have been held in Los Angeles on more than one occasion. Huge tournaments such as the World Baseball Classic have taken place at various locations around L.A. and L.A. County. There is a professional franchise for every major sport in L.A. and even more than one per sport if you expand a few miles into the O.C. This great region of California deserves a football team.
The most logical decision would be to lure a California team away from their current homes. The Raiders, Chargers, and 49ers all apply. I think the 49ers will stay pat in the yay (maybe not in San Francisco, but somewhere still close) because of the great tradition and fan base they have built there. The Chargers are only about a hundred miles away and their management has said that they are looking for a new stadium. The only problem I see there is that there has been a real Renaissance in Charger football over the last few years. The city of San Diego will try to make the organization as happy as possible to keep them there for the team’s great revenue stream.
This leaves the Raiders. A team that has had success before in L.A., the Raiders could be destined for a return. Their senile owner Al Davis is crazy enough to move his team, especially considering he did it before. There is still a Raider fan base left over from when the team was last here. I don’t really care what team comes, as long as someone does.
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No, L.A. doesn’t need a football team it needs traffic relief and besides everyone knows in L.A. if the team doesn’t win all the time they will have no fans. Just look at the “Clippers,” no one pays attention and the media rarely covers their playing.
It won’t be the Jaguars for sure. Look for another team.
L.A. lika futbol.
Sadly, your thesis doesn’t fit because if you haven’t heard the Raiders have signed a contract extension keeping them in the Oakland Coliseum through the 2013 season, which would all but eliminate them from the scenario, plus the governor has stated he would be against moving teams already in the state, because it would leave another area with economic uncertainty, he lifted the agricultural permits under the guise that the new team would come from out of state. Most likely scenarios either the Vikings or the Jags move to LA after the 2011 season.
The California Senators ( women) and our Governor a traffic parking violater are all a bunch of northern california ego maniacs…
We need to simply get rid of them.
L.A. has a built in market for sports, we need a team for our families, children.
This L.A. city council is a joke. Our mayor is a softee on everything, his persona is week and his decision making is always politics first.
Idiots in office.